


You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This

by DarkWitchOfErie



Series: Song Inspired [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Based on a Toby Keith Song, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not actually tied into the same plot as the other fic in this series, Sexy times implied but not shown, Slow Dancing at a Charity Gala, Tony Stark names Harley Keener and Peter Parker his heirs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22214992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkWitchOfErie/pseuds/DarkWitchOfErie
Summary: “Dance with me?” He held out a hand.“Huh?”“You’re dancing while you’re standing here, Pete. May as well come out onto the floor and dance with me,” he smiled, trying to play it cool as if he was just being kind instead of letting on that he wanted nothing more in that moment more than to feel Peter in his arms.Based on the Toby Keith song of the same title.
Relationships: Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: Song Inspired [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599103
Comments: 8
Kudos: 222





	You Shouldn't Kiss Me Like This

**Author's Note:**

> This story isn't connected to 'They Ain't Worth Missing' in any way, except that they're both inspired by a song.

Two weeks after graduation, Tony called Peter to the Tower. Thankfully, he’d told Peter that it wasn’t a bad thing or anything to worry about, just that it was important and he needed him there. Peter had planned to avoid going to the Tower for at least a few days. Tony had invited a kid he knew from Tennessee and he thought they’d want some time to hang out, just the two of them. Apparently he was wrong.

He took the elevator up to the top floor, which was one of two housing floors for the Avengers and the floor Tony and Pepper lived on. He walked into the entry way, toeing his shoes off and leaving them beside the elevator. Grinning, he ran across the polished wood floors toward the living room, sliding on his socks through the archway. He underestimated how fast he was running and sliding, and hit one of the couches, tumbling over it, laughing as he did.

He felt the sharp impact on his elbow but assumed it’s from the back of the couch. At least for the split second before he realizes that he didn’t land on couch cushions but on someone’s lap. His eyes flew open and he looked up into the face of a blond-haired, blue-eyed, gorgeous man. Who was clutching the back of his head with both hands.

“Oh god! I’m so sorry! Are you okay?” Peter jumped up off his lap, kneeling beside him. “Do you need ice? Stay here, I’ll go get ice!” He jumped off the couch, hurried into the kitchen, grabbed an ice pack and towel, and hurried back into the living room. Paying attention to what he was doing this time, he carefully vaulted over the couch and sat beside the other man. “Here,” he handed him the ice pack and towel. The other man carefully put the ice on his head. “I’m so sorry. Where’s Mr. Stark?” he leaned away from him, tipped his head back and yelled, “Mr. Stark!”

“I’m right here, Pete. No need to shout,” Tony was sitting across the room in one of the armchairs. “I already texted Bruce, he’ll be down as fast as he can to check Harley for a concussion.”

“I do not have a concussion, old man.”

“You might. Pete’s got a bony elbow.”

“Hey!”

“You do,” Tony shrugged, completely unrepentant. “Peter, this is Harley Keener, the kid I met in Tennessee. Harls, this is Peter Parker, my intern.”

“Oh god,” Peter dropped his head into his hands. “I’m so sorry, Harley.”

“So you’ve already said. It’s okay, Peter. I’ll survive. It’s just a headache.”

“What happened here?” Bruce walked in.

“I elbowed Harley in the head,” Peter said into his hands.

“Never struck me as the unnecessarily violent type, Pete.”

“It was an accident,” Harley defended him. “Although, still not clear on _how_ you managed to elbow me and land in my lap.”

“I was sliding on my socks into the room. I ran too fast, I guess and slid right into the couch. And your head.”

Harley chuckled. “Ow. Okay, no laughing. That hurt,” he squeezed the ice pack against his head a little firmer.

Bruce sat on the coffee table in front of him. “Any blurry vision or nausea?”

“Nope.”

“Good. Stand up for me and walk across to Tony then back again,” Bruce watched him walk and sit back down. “Good. Any dizziness?” Harley shook his head. “And clearly not having problems with the bright lights in here. Good news, it’s not a concussion. Bad news, you still have a headache and may well get subdermal bruising that’ll hurt for a couple of days.” Bruce stayed to chat with them for a little while longer, before heading back to whatever he’d been doing when Tony interrupted him.

“Well, now that you’ve met each other, time to tell you why.” Tony got up and started pacing. “Right, so I don’t know if I’ve ever told you two how important you actually are in my life. You’re the annoying kids I didn’t know I needed in my life. So because of that, I really need you two to get along because I’m naming you both as my heirs.” They were both silently staring at him as he paced. The longer they were quiet, the faster he moved. “Guys?”

“I need to call Dr. Banner back here. Can you get a concussion from elbowing someone else in the head?” Peter turned to look at Harley.

“Don’t think so. Maybe we should have the doc examine the old man’s head?”

“What are you two talking about?”

“I don’t think I heard you right, Mr. Stark.”

“Listen. It’s not…. It’s not as if I want you two to take over right now or anything like that. Pepper and I aren’t ready to retire yet. But, there’s an adjustment period and I want you both to be prepared for when we are ready. And also, you two really are important to me and I want to make sure you and your families are taken care of when I’m not here to do that anymore. If I were to look for an heir across the entire world, I wouldn’t find anyone that I trust to take over for me more than I trust the two of you. You… you don’t have to say ‘yes’ but I really want you to. And I think you’d both be really good here.”

“Mr. Stark. Can we have some time to think about this?”

“It’s a big deal, old man.”

“Yeah, of course. As much time as you need.” Tony seemed to deflate a little as he sank back onto his chair.

Peter and Harley turned to look at each other. They stared at each other, some non-verbal communication happening between them. They grinned at the same time and turned back to Tony. “We’re in.”

“Seriously? Just like that?”

“Are you kidding? Spending as much time as humanly possible in the lab? My dream job.”

“Figuring out ways to expand the application of the arc reactor? I’m so there.”

“I wonder what the power limits are on one of those,” Peter turned to look at Harley. “Like, the one that powers the Tower is capable of powering the whole thing, top to bottom, pretty much 24/7. I mean, we have to shut it off for 12 hours once every 28 days as kind of a reboot. But other than that, it runs constantly, and the power levels never fluctuate.”

“So, for a normal-sized city, not like LA or Chicago or New York, could it power the whole city?”

“I mean, maybe. Or! Two slightly smaller ones, on opposite sides of the city, working in tandem.”

“That’s a lot of arc reactors.”

“That’s also a lot of jobs,” Peter shrugged. “It has to be manned pretty much constantly. Just in case something goes wrong.”

“I wonder what the physical range is? I mean, could you get power into a mountain town without installing an arc reactor in the town? Could it be brought in from like a central hub?”

“Definitely, I just don’t know the physical range. We’ll figure it out.”

Tony sat in shock, watching his two heirs discuss the power capabilities of arc reactors. This may have been one of the best ideas he’d ever had.

~~~~

Over the next few months, the boys became better acquainted with how Stark Industries was run and what exactly it took to keep a company that large running smoothly. Sometimes, they would all be together. They’d go to meetings in New York, have meetings in the Tower, travel to DC or LA for meetings. Other times, they’d split up. Pepper would have to go to a series of meetings in France and one of the boys would accompany her. Then she’d have to go to a series of meetings in Japan, and the other boy would accompany her. Whoever wasn’t with Pepper, stayed with Tony and learned what it took to keep everything going at home when Pepper wasn’t there. Because he had given up being CEO, Tony didn’t travel for work as much and never without Pepper unless it was Avengers business.

Peter, Harley, and Tony were all thankful for the Board of Directors, though none would say that to their faces because none of them actually _liked_ the Board members much. The Board was made up mostly of older men, some had been on the Board since before Tony became Iron Man. But thanks to them, Tony and Pepper’s jobs - and by extension Harley and Peter’s jobs - were easier. The Board knew what needed to be done and, though they weren’t the quickest at getting it done, they were mostly efficient. They also knew that they were being watched closely when it came to their actions in relation to the company. Ever since Obie had betrayed him to such an extent, Tony hadn’t trusted the Board even though he understood the need for them. So, he and FRIDAY kept a close watch on them and if they did anything against the company’s ideals, like selling technology to competitors, they were fired.

The young men also learned how to balance their responsibilities with the fun stuff. They made time as often as possible to hang out with the people important to them, video calling them when they were out of town. They made time to hang out in the lab or the garage, working on projects that weren’t necessarily work-related. And, because Tony had insisted that he wanted them to get along not just act friendly, they made time for each other.

It wasn’t exactly a hardship for either of them to hang out together. They got along great – they had a lot of the same interests. Harley finally felt he had someone his own age who was just as intelligent as he was, albeit in a different science. Still, Peter was someone he could talk to about the technicalities involved in the engineering side of SI and in their personal lab and he’d understand what he meant. Or, he’d at least understand it enough to carry on a conversation. Peter didn’t have the same problem as he’d gone to Midtown – a school full of science nerds. But Harley did help him remember that there was more to life than science. He insisted on going out into the city and experiencing it. Spider-Man knew his way around Queens and knew about the fun stuff he could do there. But rarely did Peter think about going out to do those things. He’d always been elbow deep in a textbook or a project. They helped each other find a kind of balance between the responsibilities, the work things that were fun, and the things that were just fun.

And of course, it helped each of them that the other was very easy on the eyes. Once, on his first overnight trip with Pepper to DC, Harley had called his sister Abbie and told her all about Peter and his huge crush on the other boy. Abbie had interrupted when Harley started in about the way Peter’s eyes lit up when he was excited about something, saying she really didn’t need that much detail, but she was happy for him and hoped he got his act together and asked him out, sooner rather than later.

It was MJ, of course, who noticed Peter’s crush on Harley. They had gotten together for weekly game night. Usually, it was the Avengers’ game night, but most of them were out of town so Peter and Harley had jumped at the opportunity to invite their non-superhero friends over. At one point Harley left the room and MJ leaned in to whisper “Either tell him or stop staring so obviously. He’s gonna notice,” then went right back to listening to Tony’s _Clue_ guess as if she hadn’t said a word.

One evening that they were supposed to hang out, no work just fun, there was an alert broadcast throughout the Tower. Killer robots, descending on the Tower from above. Someone had let them out of an airplane slightly to the left of the Tower. Bucky and Steve burst into the cinema room where Peter and Harley had been debating on a movie.

“Good, this room should be pretty secure. Harley, stay here. Peter, suit up. We need Spider-Man.”

“Steve!” Peter, wide-eyed, gestured at Harley.

“I thought you told him already?”

“I was going to! After we relaxed with this movie.”

Bucky chuckled. “Come on, kid, kicking robot ass will make you feel better.”

“Will not. And technically, I don’t think robots have asses,” Peter toed off his shoes and tossed his hoodie across a chair.

“Language!”

“Not a kid anymore, Steve,” he activated the nanotech bracelets that contained his suit and turned to look at Harley, letting the mask fall away for a moment. “Listen, I really did mean to tell you tonight. And I promise you can ask all the questions you want. As soon as I get back. Just, stay in here where it’s secure.”

“Or go down to the rec room with Pepper. It’s secure there too,” Steve shrugged a shoulder. “Come on, Spidey, time to go.”

Whoever planned the attack on the Tower, had terrible timing. Practically everyone was there, with the exception of Scott and Hope who were on the west coast, and Thor who was off-world. With so many Avengers present, they made quick work of the robots with hardly any injuries. Peter hurried back to the cinema room after confirming with FRIDAY that Harley was still there.

“Are you alright? Was anyone hurt?” Harley hurried over to him as soon as the door opened.

“Yes, we’re all alright. Just scraps and bruises mostly. I need a few suit repairs, but that’s not unusual.” Peter tapped his wrists together and the suit shrunk back into bracelets.

“Not hurt? Peter, look at your arm!” There was a large gash running from his shoulder, down a few inches on his left arm. Harley turned to grab a roll of paper towels from what next to the popcorn machine.

“It’s not a big deal, Harley. It barely hurts and it’ll be healed in an hour or so.”

“Seriously?” He turned back to face Peter.

“Seriously. I heal quick. Come on, I promised an explanation. We might as well sit down.” By the time Peter finished telling Harley about the spider bite, him figuring out his powers, and the creation of his web fluid, the wound on his arm was almost completely healed.

“So wait, you sticking to poles and stuff in the videos, that’s all you not the suit?”

“Exactly. Here, watch this,” Peter walked over to and then up the wall. He walked along the ceiling until he was right above Harley. “Pretty cool, right?”

Harley stood up on his chair, so they were face to face. Their faces were within just a couple inches, so close that Harley could feel Peter’s breath on his face. He reached up and ran his fingers through Peter’s hair. “Yeah, very cool,” he muttered.

Peter blushed bright red and backed away, chuckling a little. He really hoped Harley didn’t notice the blush or wrote it off as being caused by being upside down if he had noticed. “Anyway,” he backed up further and flipped down onto the ground. “Did you still wanna watch a movie?”

Harley didn’t tell Abbie about Peter being Spider-Man but, according to Abbie, he did start to talk about the smaller man more frequently. Abbie insisted he was incapable of having a conversation in which he didn’t bring up Peter. Peter did tell Ned, MJ, and Aunt May that Harley knew about his other identity and each of them commented on how they were surprised it had taken so long. They were together all the time, surely it should have come up sooner.

It had been a little bit of an issue that everyone had noticed at one time or another. They would be at weekly game night and everyone noticed the way they’d stare at the other when they thought they could get away with it. It would happen at dinner too, whether they were at the Tower or out at a restaurant. More than once Tony caught them watching each other in the lab instead of watching what they were working on. Thankfully, they were intelligent enough to focus when they were handling something dangerous in the lab, but anytime it was safe to let their minds wander, they would start watching the other and whatever he was working on.

Tony, one of the people who had to deal with their pining the most frequently, was getting more and more annoyed with them. He complained to Pepper as frequently as she would allow, that they were two of the smartest people he knew and why could neither of them pull themselves together enough to ask the other out. He was contemplating getting the other Avengers’ help in setting the two of them up, but she talked him out of it every time.

Six months after Tony announced he was naming them both his heirs, Peter stood in front of his mirror, tugging on his bowtie. It still wouldn’t lay the way it was supposed to, much to his annoyance. “What’s up, Pete?”

“I hate bowties.”

“Stop,” Harley pushed his hands away. “You’re only going to mess it up more, the more you keep fiddling with it. Hold still.” Peter did his best to tamp down on the blush that rose up his neck at Harley being so close. “There, perfect.” Harley looked up and caught his eye.

They maintained eye contact for a few seconds until Peter cleared his throat and took a step back. “Thanks, Harley,” he said, turning and grabbing his suit jacket. Harley wiped the look of disappointment off of his face before Peter could turn back around. “Ready?”

“Yeah. Pep and Tony are in the living room waiting for us.” They made their way out to the living room. This particular gala was a charity fundraiser for Pepper’s sponsored charity which was the American Kidney Foundation. She’d lost her own father to kidney disease and had chosen the charity as a way to honor him. At least once a year, each of the four of them hosted a charity gala for their sponsored charity. However much money was donated during the gala was doubled by Stark Industries. Because this one was Pepper’s, she was in charge of what they wore – including the colors. Each of the men were in matching black, three-piece suits with royal purple vests and bow ties. Pepper was in long, royal purple, off the shoulder gown. She was also in charge of planning everything for the gala, down to what food was served not just who was catering it.

Harley and Peter were each freaking out over what that meant. They hadn’t yet been to a Stark Industries party, having been given a pass on the summer parties as they had only been named heirs at the beginning of the summer. The charity galas were hugely important, compared to any other party hosted by Stark Industries. They’d both been assured that Tony and Pepper would be with them every step of the way as far as the planning went, but it still made them both nervous. Most things about running Stark Industries made them nervous.

“Well, don’t you boys look amazing,” Pepper smiled at them from beside the living room couch. She strode over to them and smoothed out both of their collars. “Remember, you’re not expected to know much about my charity, direct all those people to me. But I do expect to see both of you mingling with the people down there, not just talking to each other, okay?” They nodded. “And relax, you two are impossible to not like. You’ll be just fine.”

Together, the four of them took the elevator down to the events floor. That’s what Tony called it, anyway. It was basically a large banquet hall with an industrial kitchen for the caterers, an attached bar, and a large ballroom all branching off of the lobby that the elevator opened up to. The lobby was currently crowded with photographers, trying to get good photos of Pepper and Tony as always but also of Harley and Peter at their first official party. Tony had taught them how to handle this part, all they had to do was maintain a pleasant smile and keep walking forward. For now, Tony and Pepper would handle the rest. They made it through the double doors quickly enough, both Peter and Harley relieved to get through the lobby.

The party went very well. It started with Pepper standing at the high table where the four of them would eat and calling for everyone’s attention. She gave a short, but powerful, speech on what the mission of the American Kidney Association’s mission was and why it was a particularly meaningful charity to her. When she sat, the caterers made their way around the room, serving everyone as quickly as possible. After dinner came the mingling portion of the evening that Peter, in particular, had been dreading. Harley was better at talking to strangers than Peter was but still wasn’t as confident as Pepper or Tony. So, they stayed close to each other hoping that having both of them together wouldn’t put either of them as someone’s direct focus. It worked well for them, they were able to share people’s attention and that made it much less nerve-wracking.

After about an hour and a half, the attention started to die down as more people either focused on Pepper or went out onto the dance floor. The two boys relaxed against one of the tables, side by side and just people watched for a few minutes. Peter swayed to the music being provided by a string quartet on a little raised platform, watching Harley from the corner of his eye whenever he thought he could get away with it. Harley rested his hands on the table, leaning his weight into them and snuck glances at Peter whenever he thought it was safe to do so. After a few minutes, he gathered his courage and turned to the smaller teen.

“Dance with me?” He held out a hand.

“Huh?”

“You’re dancing while you’re standing here, Pete. May as well come out onto the floor and dance with me,” he smiled, trying to play it cool as if he was just being kind instead of letting on that he wanted nothing more in that moment more than to feel Peter in his arms.

“Yeah, okay,” Peter took his hand, doing everything in his power to control his blush. Harley led him to the dance floor and spun him into his arms, causing them both to laugh a little. Harley held Peter’s left hand in right, while his left was on the smaller boy’s waist and Peter’s right hand was on his shoulder. They stayed a ‘respectable’ distance apart and it felt very much like a middle-school dance. They were each nervous about standing that close to the boy they’d been crushing on for the past few months, so they were standing further apart than people usually did while slow dancing.

After a couple of minutes, they started to relax and moved closer together until, like most couples, they were only about a foot apart. After another song, they’d moved closer and Harley had moved both hands onto Peter’s hips and Peter had his hands on Harley’s shoulders, his elbows bent and forearms resting against his chest. They weren’t talking much, except to make the occasional comment about someone else on the dance floor. Instead, they were doing their absolute best to stare at each other without it being obvious that that’s what they were doing.

Tony and Pepper were standing over by the bar. Pepper was talking to some important looking people that Tony just couldn’t remember the names of. But Tony was unashamedly watching his two heirs. He’d been watching them dance around each other for months, to the point where he’d been seriously considering locking them in a board room with no tools to get out. Or enlisting the other Avengers’ help.

“Tony?”

“Yes, dear?” He didn’t look over at her.

“What are you doing?”

“Watching Pete and Harls. I think tonight might be the night, Pep. And if it’s not, I’m moving on to drastic measures,” he warned her.

“You’ll do no such thing. Leave those boys alone, they’ll figure it out for themselves eventually.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem. Eventually for those two might take forever.”

“Leave them be, Tony. Come on, the President of the Association wants to speak with us,” she pulled him away from the bar and toward a group whose faces he knew, but names he couldn’t remember.

Deciding to remove the temptation of openly staring at Harley while also getting closer to him, Peter closed his eyes and moved to rest his head on the taller teen’s shoulder. Harley adjusted his arms so that they were wrapped all the way around Peter, who turned his head so that his forehead was pressed against Harley’s neck. They continued to sway to the music, each getting swept up in the feeling of being so close to each other.

The song ended, the violins holding out one last note. The cellist stood and announced that they were taking a short, 5-minute break. Peter smiled and leaned back a little. Still caught up in the moment where it felt like he and Harley were a real couple, he did what felt perfectly natural at that moment. Still smiling, he leaned up and pressed his lips to Harley’s. Harley responded instantly, bringing a hand up to cup Peter’s cheek to deepen the kiss and using the hand on his lower back to pull him in closer. It was only when his own hands drifted up to tangle in Harley’s hair that he realized how very not-normal this was.

Wide-eyed, Peter pulled away, turned, and ran. He rushed out of the ballroom and into the empty kitchen. There were only a few people from the catering company who were manning what Peter thought of as fancy snack trays and they were all out in the ballroom still. He threw open one of the giant windows and double-checked to make sure he was alone in the kitchen. With his history of dances going wrong – really just the one Homecoming – Peter had made sure to wear his web-shooters, just in case. Thankfully, he and Tony had swapped them out with a nanite version that just looked like bracelets until he needed them. He tapped them together, triggering them to become the full versions, and climbed out onto the side of the building.

There were small outcrops of steel or cement all along the side of the building that you’d never know were there if you weren’t a superhero who used webs as a travel method. Using those outcrops, Peter swung up to the top of the Tower, finally coming to a stop at his bedroom window. He considered going in, but decided he needed the cool air, and sat on the side of the building, forehead pressed to his knees. “How could I have been so dumb?” he muttered.

Shocked, it took Harley a full minute of standing still before he was able to follow, by which time Peter was nowhere to be seen. He turned around to see if he could find Tony or Pepper, hoping they would know where he was. He didn’t see them, so he hurried out into the lobby and onto the elevator.

“FRIDAY, where’s Peter?”

“Peter is currently sitting outside of his bedroom windows.”

“Sitting _OUTSIDE?_ ” He demanded.

“Yes, out on the outside of the Tower. Shall I alert him that you’re looking for him?”

“No thanks, FRIDAY. Take me up to our floor, please.” He paced a circle in the elevator, thinking for the first time that it just didn’t move fast enough. When the doors opened, he ran down the hall to Peter’s room, not noticing Bruce or Rhodey as he ran past them.

“What was that all about?”

“No idea. Come on, they’re waiting for us in the Rec room,” Rhodey nudged Bruce toward the elevator where they went down a floor and joined Steve and Bucky at the pool table.

Harley burst into Peter’s room and ran to the opened window. “Peter? What are you doing out here? We’re more than a thousand feet in the air!”

“I’m fine, Harley. This is nothing compared to how high I can swing on a web.”

“That is with a web, Peter, I know the tensile strength of those. I mean, I knew you can walk on ceilings, but this is different damn it! Get in here!” Had he not been more than a little consumed with the sight of Peter casually sitting on the side of a skyscraper, Harley would have noticed that he sounded hysterical.

As it was, Peter definitely noticed and crawled in through the window. He immediately moved to the other side of the room, wrapping his arms around himself, and not looking at Harley.

“Thank you for coming back inside. Now, why did you run away in the first place? Better yet, why did you kiss me like that when you clearly didn’t want to or mean it? Do you know how much that sucks?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t mean to? What the hell does that even mean?!” Harley was definitely still hysterical from seeing Peter on the outside of the building and did not notice that Peter seemed to be trying to make himself smaller, or that he was trying to hold back tears. Unfortunately, Peter was that type of person who got angry as a defense mechanism when he didn’t want someone else to see him cry, particularly the person who was causing the tears in the first place. Fortunately for Harley, Peter also tended to say too much when he was angry.

“I was just caught up in the moment, okay? It was nice, dancing with you and feeling like a real couple and I just got caught up in the moment! I didn’t even think about it! I just kinda decided to kiss you without thinking that you wouldn’t want me to. I’m sorry if that made you uncomfortable, but it won’t happen again.”

Peter, still looking down at the ground, did not notice Harley moving closer until they were practically chest to chest again. “It had damn well better happen again.” When Peter looked up in shock, Harley cupped his face with both hands and leaned down to kiss him. Just once, just a quick pressure of lips against lips, before pulling back to look down at him.

Peter grinned, grabbed Harley by the lapels of his suit jacket, and pulled him in for a deeper kiss. Moving his hands back to Peter’s hips, Harley walked forward, forcing him to move back until his back was against the wall. He pressed his body against the smaller man, effectively pinning him in place. Not that Peter minded in the slightest, especially when it gave him more than enough access to push Harley’s suit jacket off his shoulders and start tugging on his bow tie.

Back down at the Gala, Tony was looking around for his heirs. After Pepper had dragged him to speak with the Association President, he’d lost track of them. He made a circuit of the room, waving at people who tried to get him to stop and talk while making it clear he was looking for someone in particular. When he didn’t see them, he stepped off to the side and put a blue-tooth type earpiece in his ear.

“FRIDAY, where are Peter and Harley?”

“They are currently kissing in Peter’s room.”

“YES!” He shouted, calling everyone’s attention to himself. “Sorry, people.” He turned away from the crowd. “Leave them alone, FRIDAY.”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Tony?” Pepper strode up to him.

He pulled her into his arms as he put the earpiece away. “No more pining in the lab, Pep! No more longing looks at the dinner table or during game nights!” He spun around with her a few times. He studiously avoided thinking about exactly what they might be getting up to and focused solely on what this meant for his daily interactions with them both.


End file.
